Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity (Kōmyōzō Zanmai)
Sōtō Zen · Received colophon dated 1278
Kōmyōzō Zanmai
Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity · Received T2590 attribution: Kōun Ejō (孤雲懷奘)
About Kōun Ejō and Dōgen
Kōun Ejō (孤雲懷奘, 1198–1280) was one of the central figures in the first generation of Japanese Sōtō Zen and Dōgen’s leading disciple and eventual successor. According to the ancient biographical traditions surveyed in recent Sōtō scholarship, Ejō is believed to have been born in the capital—present-day Kyoto—in 1198 and to have belonged to the Fujiwara clan. The early ordination chronology is not completely uniform: the Denkōroku says that he had his head shaved at eighteen, while other old records place his reception of the bodhisattva precepts at Enryakuji on Mount Hiei in 1218, when he was twenty-one. After leaving Mount Hiei he studied Pure Land Buddhism and then Zen in the Daruma-school milieu under Kakuan at Tōnomine. After Eihei Dōgen (1200–1253) returned from China in 1227, Ejō went to Kenninji and engaged him in doctrinal questioning. He joined Dōgen’s community at Kōshōji in 1234, received precepts from him in 1235, and served as Kōshōji’s first shuso (head monk) in 1236.
Ejō became Dōgen’s close attendant and recorder. During the mid-1230s he recorded Dōgen’s informal talks at Kōshōji; those records form the basis of the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, whose surviving form SOTOZEN.COM notes was probably edited by Ejō’s disciples after his death. Official Sōtō materials give slightly different spans for the recording activity, so this panel does not force a narrower year range. After Dōgen’s death in 1253, Ejō succeeded him as the second abbot of Eiheiji. In 1267 he retired from the abbacy and named Tettsū Gikai as his successor; after Gikai stepped down five years later amid conflict in the assembly, Ejō became abbot again. The line Dōgen → Ejō → Tettsū Gikai → Keizan Jōkin became the principal transmission through which Dōgen’s lineage continued into later Sōtō generations.
The received T2590 text attributes Kōmyōzō Zanmai to Ejō and preserves a colophon dated the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month of Kōan 1 (1278), two years before his death. The attribution is longstanding and continues to appear in Sōtō institutional publications and library catalogues, but it has also been seriously challenged in modern source-critical scholarship. Kiyotaka Kimura’s 2002 study concludes that the work is not by Ejō and hypothesizes a later Sōtō monastic author between Keizan and Menzan; Ryōbun Hirose’s 2025 research explicitly revisits the authenticity problem. This page therefore follows the controlling T2590 witness for attribution and translation while treating 1278 specifically as the date preserved by the received colophon, not as independent proof that Ejō wrote the work. A recent scholarly biography published by the Sōtō Zen Buddhism International Center also notes an important naming point: the ancient biographies it surveys call him simply Ejō; Kōun, although standard in modern Sōtō usage and retained on this page, appears only in relatively recent biographies from the Edo period onward.
Research and further reading: Sōtō Zen Journal: Biography of Ejō, Part 1 · Part 2 · Sōtō Zen history · CiNii bibliographic record for Kōmyōzō Zanmai · Kimura’s 2002 authorship study · 2025 study on the authenticity question
Context note. This biographical panel is editorial background added for readers; it is not part of the translated T2590 text below.
Preface to the Recut Edition of Kōmyōzō Zanmai
This book, Kōmyōzō Zanmai, is a ray from the white curl between the brows of our Ancestor Ejō. The Ancestor used it to illuminate and break through; those who come after use it to turn the light back and illuminate themselves. The World-Honored One’s teaching throughout the five periods and the Founding Ancestor’s instructions throughout his lifetime—could they have had any other purpose?
About a hundred years ago, in an autumn commemorating half a millennium since Ancestor Ejō’s death, the elder Menzan, together with Genryō of Eikeiji, joined their efforts to carve printing blocks and make this work public. Then the dark chamber of beginningless time suddenly opened and the luminosity of Dharma-nature shone again. But many years passed, the original blocks wore away, and copies of the book became rare. For years I anxiously sought one and could not find it.
Historical-textual note. T2590 reads 在祖半千諱景之秋. Here 諱景 is memorial/death-anniversary language, although it is not the more specific 遠忌 wording used a few lines later for the 1878 six-hundredth grand memorial. The received preface contains a chronological tension: the 1766 publication colophons below precede Ejō’s formal five-hundredth memorial, which Komazawa University Museum’s chronology places in An’ei 8 (1779). The body therefore preserves the commemorative force of 諱景 without identifying the 1766 recut with that independently attested formal 1779 observance.
Textual note. Before 面山 (Menzan), T2590 reads 命福老人. Menzan Zuihō is independently documented under the sobriquet 永福老人 (Eifuku Rōjin). Because the controlling witness has 命 rather than 永, the body preserves only the secure title “elder” and does not silently normalize or romanize the uncertain epithet.
In the autumn of Meiji 11, on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, it happened to coincide with the Ancestor’s six-hundredth grand memorial observance. My Dharma brother Kōan, formerly of Buttokuji, brought this book, making a special journey up the mountain. I swept my room, burned incense, and received it with great joy. This was more than finding a ring in a neighbor’s grounds and seeing the pearls return to Hepu: it was a great blessing for the Ancestor’s descendants, and a great luminosity in this degenerate age. I therefore sent it to the former west-hall elder Teizan and arranged to have it recut. The carving is now complete.
Historical note. T2590 itself dates this observance to Meiji 11 (1878) and calls it the Ancestor’s 六百遠忌 (“six-hundredth grand memorial”). Ejō’s death is traditionally dated to Kōan 3 (1280), but independent historical research likewise records Eiheiji holding Ejō’s six-hundredth grand memorial in September 1878. The English therefore preserves the historical observance-name found in the source rather than recalculating it from the standard biographical death date.
Textual note. At 得環隣揃, the direct Taishō/SAT wording is unusual. It appears to compress the classical Yang Hu ring-recovery allusion; the English therefore renders only the secure allusive sense and does not emend the local text.
Alas! If the tens of thousands of distant descendants in our latter branches know only how to dwell in the residual light left by the Ancestor, yet never turn the illumination back upon themselves, who knows whether the Ancestor’s luminosity may not finally fall to the ground? Can we fail to take warning?
Eiheiji, sixty-first generation — the unworthy Mitsuun, respectfully prefacing
Preface to Kōmyōzō Zanmai
The Buddha said that the luminosity of wisdom is like the shining of the sun: it is the illuminating contemplation of prajñā, what is meant by “clearly seeing that the five aggregates are all empty.” In the Zen school this is called “turning the light around and shining back.” The whole lifetime of the Founding Ancestor Eihei’s teaching never departed from this. Ancestor Ejō inherited it and set forth this fascicle; one may indeed say that the son followed the father.
In my prime, I was reading through the canon at Sannōrin in Fusa. An elder practitioner named Tōkai from Kōzuke entrusted this fascicle to me, saying that he himself had obtained it twenty years earlier at the ancestral mountain in Echizen. I accepted and treasured it with great joy.
Historical-geographical note. T2590 reads 總之山王林, literally “Sannōrin in Fusa.” Modern scholarship identifies this Sannōrin with Tōshōji in Shimōsa; historical-geographical records place Tōshōji’s Sannōyama village in Shimōsa Province. The body therefore retains the source’s compact Fusa rather than expanding it to the broader modern label “Sōshū,” which can denote Kazusa and Shimōsa collectively.
I find in Zen Master Keizan’s words: “Zazen is the Dharma gate of ease and joy, the wondrous Dharma of great liberation; the mind-seal of transmitting mind to mind for each person, the standard of receiving Dharma through Dharma for each person. There is no distinction between wise and foolish, no separation between ordinary and sage. All abide in the samādhi of self-enjoyment and together realize and enter the Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity. It is originally apart from the operations of mind, thought, and consciousness and is never measured by thinking, imagining, or contemplation. Have you recognized it yet?” After a long pause he said, “It appears through nonthinking; it is accomplished without intermingling.” Keizan may truly be said to have inherited it directly and exactly, without changing a hair’s breadth.
The ancient temple Eikeiji on Great Dragon Mountain in Bungo was founded by Ancestor Ejō in the Hōji era. Its present abbot, Genryō, whose sobriquet is written 大津 in the source, gave up money intended for robes in order to have this text engraved. I rejoice in his deed and add the following verse of praise as my preface:
When the season ripens, the wondrous teaching is encountered;
— Menzan Zuihō
beyond measureless kalpas, an excellent affinity.
A golden-winged garuḍa is hard to bind with a golden snare-line;
even a jade horse is urged on with a white-jade whip.
The sound of wind striking bamboo clears the morning mist;
water holding the moon’s reflection brightens the autumn sky.
The Samādhi of Luminosity stands openly revealed,
shining throughout the three-thousandfold Sahā world.
The eighty-four-year-old Menzan, distant descendant in the twenty-eighth generation, respectfully inscribed this
Kōmyōzō Zanmai — Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity
Recorded by Ejō
Within the Shōbōgenzō there is a fascicle entitled “Luminosity.” I now present this further piece solely to enable thorough realization that the face of the Buddha family is the Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity. It is the hidden practice and secret functioning by which those long in training, who have entered the Master’s room, engage in their own practice and guide others.
What is called the Treasury of Luminosity is the source of all buddhas, what sentient beings inherently possess, and the totality of the myriad dharmas: the great Treasury of Luminosity of the spiritual power of complete awakening. The three bodies, the four wisdoms, and the samādhis of the universal gate, countless as dust motes, all manifest from within it.
Dīpaṃkara Buddha and the Light of the Sūtras
“Dīpaṃkara Tathāgata’s great radiance is supreme among all auspicious things. That Buddha once entered this palace; therefore this place is most auspicious.”
— Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 16, “Ascending the Summit of Mount Sumeru”
The great luminosity of Dīpaṃkara Buddha pervades the Dharma-realm. Because within it there is no difference between ordinary and sage, “that Buddha once entered this palace.” To hear “Thus” once and take it up is itself to enter this palace. And because “this place is most auspicious,” when Śākyamuni Tathāgata received the prediction of buddhahood from Dīpaṃkara Buddha, he said that there was nothing attained. Precisely because there was nothing attained, he received Dīpaṃkara’s prediction. This is because one seamless field of luminosity spans ancient and present. If there were even the slightest thing attained, it would already be split in two.
Textual note. T2590 reads 如是一聞ノ承當. The wording makes 如是 (“Thus”) explicit and, in this sūtra-quotation context, likely plays on the conventional opening 如是我聞 (“Thus have I heard”). The body therefore keeps the locally present “Thus” visible without silently expanding T2590 to the full canonical formula.
At that time the Bhagavān addressed Vajrapāṇi, saying: “The mind of bodhi is the cause; great compassion is the root; skillful means are the culmination. Lord of Mysteries, what is bodhi? It is to know one’s own mind as it really is. Lord of Mysteries, this is unsurpassed complete awakening. In that Dharma not even the slightest portion can be obtained. Why? Because bodhi has the characteristic of empty space. There is no one who comprehends it, nor is there any understanding of it. Why? Because bodhi is without characteristics. Lord of Mysteries, the dharmas are without characteristics: this is the characteristic of empty space.”
— Mahāvairocana Sūtra, chapter 1, “The Stations of the Mind When Entering the Mantra Gateway”
“Lord of Mysteries, in the practice of the Great Vehicle one gives rise to the mind of the vehicle without any object [of cognition] and comprehends the selflessness of phenomena. Why? Like those who practiced in this way in former times, one contemplates the ālaya—the abode of the aggregates—knowing its own nature to be like an illusion, a mirage, a reflection, an echo, a whirling wheel of fire, or a gandharva city. Lord of Mysteries, having thus relinquished the notion of no-self, with the mind-lord free, one awakens to one’s own mind as fundamentally unborn. Why? Lord of Mysteries, because the mind’s former and latter limits cannot be obtained. By thus knowing the nature of one’s own mind, this is the yogic practice of transcending the second eon.”
— Mahāvairocana Sūtra, chapter 1, “The Stations of the Mind When Entering the Mantra Gateway”
“Former and latter limits cannot be obtained” means that one’s own mind is fundamentally unborn. Such is Vairocana’s great wisdom-luminosity.
“The Buddha-body universally emits great radiance;
— Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 11
its forms are boundless, utterly pure.
Like clouds it fills every land;
everywhere the Buddha’s virtues are proclaimed.
All whom the radiance illumines rejoice;
all the suffering of sentient beings is entirely extinguished.
Each is caused to arouse reverence and a mind of loving-kindness:
this is the Tathāgata’s sovereign functioning.”
“At that time the radiance passed beyond a hundred thousand worlds and universally illumined a million worlds in the east. South, west, north, the four intermediate directions, above and below were likewise. In each of those worlds were a hundred koṭis of Jambudvīpas, and so on up to a hundred koṭis of Akaniṣṭha heavens; everything within them became clearly manifest. … Then Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, in every place and before each Buddha, simultaneously raised his voice and spoke this verse:
‘The Tathāgata is supremely sovereign,
— Avataṃsaka Sūtra, chapter 9, “Awakening through Luminosity”
transcending the world, relying on nothing.
Possessing every virtue,
liberated from all that exists,
undefiled and unattached,
without thought and without reliance,
his essential nature cannot be measured;
all who behold him praise him.
Luminosity pervades, entirely pure;
all dusty defilements are cleansed away.
Unmoving, apart from the two extremes—
this is the Tathāgata’s wisdom.’”
Thus the Tathāgata’s wisdom is luminosity: the samādhi of the luminosity of unmoving wisdom that casts off the two extremes of ordinary and sage, ultimate and conventional. It is the luminosity of the non-discriminating wisdom of Great Wisdom Mañjuśrī. It manifests in just sitting, without contrivance. Hence Vairocana tells the Lord of Mysteries, “In the practice of the Great Vehicle one gives rise to the mind of the vehicle without any object [of cognition] and comprehends the selflessness of phenomena.” The Third Ancestor says, “Do not seek the true; only cease holding views.” Know clearly, therefore, that within the Treasury of Luminosity of this vehicle without any object [of cognition] there is neither selfhood nor any view. The terms “self” and “view” are merely other names for spirit heads and demon faces. From the initial self-view all the way through views of Buddha and Dharma, establish none of them. There is only this luminosity. Listen carefully: prajñāpāramitā is like a great mass of fire.
“At that time the Buddha emitted from the white curl between his brows a ray that illumined eighteen thousand worlds to the east, pervading them all, downward to the Avīci hell and upward to the Akaniṣṭha heaven.”
— Lotus Sūtra
Therefore this luminous sign is the supremely rare numinous radiance accomplished by a Buddha. In answer to Maitreya’s question, the great being Mañjuśrī says: “This original luminous sign appeared in the past when Sun-Moon-Lamp Buddha, while teaching a Great Vehicle scripture, entered the Samādhi of the Abode of Immeasurable Meanings. Now Śākyamuni Buddha is about to teach the Wondrous Dharma Lotus—the Dharma that instructs bodhisattvas and is protected and kept in mind by buddhas.” Know, therefore, that this luminosity fulfills immeasurable meanings: a great universal illumination with no second or third.
Mañjuśrī at that time was Bodhisattva Wondrous Light. He became the teacher of Sun-Moon-Lamp Buddha’s eight sons and established them firmly in the unsurpassed Way; the last to become Buddha was named Dīpaṃkara. Know from this that the zazen of our gate is precisely the Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity directly transmitted from Dīpaṃkara to Śākyamuni. What further meaning could there be? It is the luminosity in which ordinary and sage are not two, the One Vehicle of present and past. It does not issue from within and it does not enter from without. Why needlessly become discouraged over distinctions of high and low, intimate and distant? It cannot be grasped and cannot be cast away. Why suffer under discriminative feelings of grasping and rejecting, hatred and attachment?
Not only that. In the “Peaceful Practices” chapter, the Buddha tells Mañjuśrī:
“If a bodhisattva mahāsattva dwells on the ground of patience, gentle, harmonious, and compliant, neither rash nor violent, with mind also unafraid; and further, with regard to dharmas, engages in nothing, yet contemplates all dharmas according to their true characteristic—neither acting upon them nor discriminating.”
— Lotus Sūtra, “Peaceful Practices”
This is just sitting; this is just walking meditation. In neither acting upon them nor discriminating, one proceeds in accord with the great luminosity.
The same chapter says in verse:
“Rather than making inverted discriminations—saying that dharmas exist or do not exist, are real or unreal, arise or do not arise—dwell in a secluded place, gather and regulate the mind, and abide stable and unmoving like Mount Sumeru. Contemplate all dharmas as being without substance, like empty space, without solidity: not arising, not emerging, unmoving, not retreating, constantly abiding in a single characteristic. This is called the place of approach.”
— Lotus Sūtra, “Peaceful Practices”
This is a direct indication of “straightforwardly abandon expedient means and preach only the unsurpassed Way.”
Bodhidharma, Yunmen, and the Luminosity of the Whole Body
In China, when Emperor Wu of Liang asked Bodhidharma about the ultimate meaning of the holy truths, Bodhidharma said, “Vast emptiness—nothing holy.” This is the great mass of fire of luminosity in ancestral Zen, transparent in every direction, with not a single thing. Outside luminosity there is no separate practice and no different Dharma—how much less cognition and its object. How could there be practice and realization, antidotal treatment, or contrivance? The emperor asked, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.” It is nothing but one seamless expanse of luminosity. Later Xuedou praised this exchange: “The holy truth—vast emptiness; how could one discern the point? ‘Who faces me?’ Again he says, ‘I don’t know.’” If you penetrate this encounter and drop away, your whole body is luminosity; the whole world is luminosity.
The thirty-ninth generation from the World-Honored One, Great Master Kuangzhen of Mount Yunmen, ascended the hall and instructed the assembly:
“Everyone has luminosity. When you look for it, you do not see it: all is dark and murky. What is everyone’s luminosity?” No one answered. Yunmen himself answered on their behalf: “The monks’ hall, the Buddha hall, the kitchen and storehouse, the mountain gate.”
— Yunmen
When Yunmen says that everyone has luminosity, he does not say that it will appear later, nor that it existed only in the past, nor that it manifests before an onlooker. He says: everyone has luminosity. This is the precise import of great wisdom-luminosity. Hear and uphold it in your skin, flesh, bones, and marrow; rejoice and put it into practice. Luminosity is each and every person; Śākyamuni and Maitreya are servants of that one. “It does not increase in buddhas or decrease in sentient beings” is precisely this numinous luminosity. Therefore it is whole-being. The great earth is one mass of fire.
Yunmen asked, “What is everyone’s luminosity?” The assembly had no answer. Even if there were hundreds and thousands of ways to express it, there would still be no answer. Yunmen answered for them: “The monks’ hall, the Buddha hall, the kitchen and storehouse, the mountain gate.” His answering for them answers for every person, for luminosity, for the darkness, and for the assembly’s silence. It is the Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity in which luminosity opens forth.
Therefore it does not inquire whether one is a sentient being or a buddha and does not discriminate between sentient and insentient. Luminosity has long shone everywhere; it has no beginning and no location. Therefore it is dark and murky. It is the “How?” It is walking in the night. For countless koṭis of kalpas, it is inconceivable.
Textual note. 作麼生 is a Chan interrogative expression (“how?” / “what?”), but T2590 here has the predicative form 作麼生ナリ, placed between 暗昏昏ナリ and 夜裡行ナリ. “It is the ‘How?’” preserves both the interrogative expression and Ejō’s parallel predication.
A monk once began asking Yunmen, “Luminosity, quiescently illuminating, pervades worlds as countless as the sands of the Ganges…” Before he had finished, Yunmen abruptly asked, “Isn’t that a saying of the scholar Zhang Zhuo?” The monk said yes. Yunmen said, “You have fallen into words.” Homage to the ancient Buddha Yunmen! His eyes shoot like meteors, his functioning flashes like lightning. The monk had no word. Who would not know shame at that point?
Xuefeng told the assembly, “The buddhas of the three times turn the great Dharma wheel within flames.” Yunmen said, “The flames preach the Dharma for the buddhas of the three times; the buddhas of the three times stand there and listen.” Thus the luminosity of the flames is the bodhimaṇḍa of the buddhas of the three times and the teacher of all buddhas. Therefore all tathāgatas abide in the fundamental bodhimaṇḍa of the Great Light of Quiescent Extinction and ceaselessly preach Dharma amid the myriad forms. Value what you hear, but do not disparage what you see. This mass of flame is neither before nor after; it is nothing but total manifestation through and through.
Yet people generate discrimination for themselves and belittle and confine themselves: “From the beginning I am an obscure sentient being, an ignorant ordinary person.” This slandering of the Tathāgata’s wheel of true Dharma is in truth karma leading to Avīci hell. Xuefeng’s words and Yunmen’s “flames preach the Dharma” directly abandon expedients and proclaim only the unsurpassed Way; they raise up the teaching of the Buddha’s whole lifetime. Xuefeng’s very words have already been burned away in these flames. Do you intend to escape them? Reciting sūtras and bowing, lifting a foot and setting it down—each and every one is the great functioning of luminosity manifesting before you. Why study it as though it depended on someone else’s beneficent power?
Some fail to know this profound intent and exhaust themselves trying to quiet thoughts. Others, doubting that it can really be so, make their livelihood in a ghost cave. Some are like people entering the sea to count grains of sand; some like mosquitoes and gadflies trying to pierce a paper window. Leave aside “falling into words.” Great worthies, what is it? Though there is no time to waste washing a clod of earth in mud, practitioners of Zen, when posing a question, should first know the saying they are taking up. It already says “quiescently illuminating” and “pervades worlds as countless as the sands of the Ganges.” How could these be merely Zhang Zhuo’s words? How could they be merely the World-Honored One’s? How could they be yours? Ultimately, whose words are they? Monks’ hall, Buddha hall, kitchen and storehouse, mountain gate—listen carefully, listen carefully.
Great Master Zhaoxian of Changsha ascended the hall and instructed the assembly:
“The entire world of the ten directions is the eye of the monk. The entire world of the ten directions is the everyday speech of the monk. The entire world of the ten directions is the monk’s whole body. The entire world of the ten directions is one’s own luminosity. In the entire world of the ten directions there is not a single person who is not oneself.”
— Changsha
In studying the Buddha Way, one must study diligently and come to trust and understand it. Unless through life after life one has formed affinities with the Buddha family, how could one hear such instruction? Again and again, do not become increasingly distant from it. The “entire world of the ten directions” spoken by Changsha is the single eye of the very person who studies; it is the whole realm of empty space and the entire body-mind. It neither grasps the sacred nor discards the ordinary; it does not say, “Deluded people are not thus; awakened people are thus.” It directly points: this is your own luminosity. Do not hand it over to Master Changsha.
This Dharma talk is free-ranging exposition within your own nostrils and free, unhindered use within each person’s eyes. Yet some take up ancient-case kōans as something separate and, until death, never turn the light back upon themselves and remain unaware. Each is a rich man’s child without trousers. Again, when foolish people hear the word “luminosity,” they imagine something like the glow of fireflies, lamps, sun and moon, gold or jewels. They grope and calculate, trying to see some brightness; they make it an object of mind and speculate about it through the faculty of thought, aiming toward a realm that is empty, vacant, and still. Thus they stop movement and return to stillness. Some cannot cast away a view of real existence or the deluded view that there is something to attain. Some continually entertain thoughts of something inconceivably mysterious and subtle, dwelling excessively on how rare and difficult it is to encounter. There are many such rice-bags dozing with their eyes open.
If it were truly the inconceivable and subtle great matter, why fantasize that thought could reach it? Such people are of the demonic kind: they take the meditative contemplation of the consciousness-spirit to be Buddha-sitting. For this reason our First Ancestor revealed: “Vast emptiness—nothing holy. I don’t know.” To meet such a revelation is indeed difficult and rare.
“Students of the Way do not know the real
— Changsha
because all along they have taken the consciousness-spirit for the real.
The root of birth-and-death through measureless kalpas—
fools call it the original person.”
Thus to measure one’s own mind, establish something attained, and then undertake practice and realization on that basis is to nourish the root of birth-and-death. What is now called “the real” and indicated as “the original person” is the vast openness of luminosity, inherently present and perfectly complete. Outside this vast luminosity, what could you even think of craving or seeking? Therefore: nothing holy; I don’t know. It is only an iron hammerhead without a hole for a handle, only a great mass of fire.
Ordinary Mind Is the Way
Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “What is the Way?” Nanquan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.” Zhaozhou asked, “Should I direct myself toward it?” Nanquan said, “The moment you intend to head toward it, you turn away.” Zhaozhou asked, “If I do not intend, how can I know the Way?” Nanquan said, “The Way does not belong to knowing and does not belong to not-knowing. Knowing is deluded awareness; not-knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the Way beyond doubt, it is like the great empty sky, vast and open. How could it be forced into right and wrong?”
— Nanquan and Zhaozhou, as cited by Ejō
Ancients therefore pitied those who, relying on cultivated effort and contrivance, take a mistaken direction, and carefully guided them: “The Way cannot be attained by having mind; it cannot be attained by having no mind. It cannot be reached through words; it cannot be arrived at through silent stillness. As soon as deliberation is involved, you are separated by a thousand or ten thousand leagues.” In all supramundane matters and principles, what notion of practicing the mind could there be outside this “having mind” and “having no mind”? Since it is already said to be unattainable either with mind or with no-mind, why not quickly put down the fantasies of seeking mind and discarding mind?
Ordinary people who do not even reach this point because of disbelief and laziness greedily cling to the illusory mark of self, rush about with an air of importance through a world like dream, illusion, bubble, and shadow, and do not know that they have been possessed by the demon of worldly cleverness and eloquence. Their cleverness never rests. Hearing secondhand only the word “luminosity,” they speculate that perhaps sparks shoot from the Buddha’s brow. They interpret meaning according to written phrases but never resolve to penetrate the reality of the sages. Even when seasoned adepts appear in the world, they do not go to them for instruction. How then could they settle decisively that the whole body is luminosity, the Dharma-realm is luminosity, covering heaven and covering earth? They are corrupt monks attached to marks, not worth pitying.
“Each light is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black; not form and not mind; not existence and not nonexistence; not a dharma of cause and effect. It is the source of all buddhas, the root of practicing the bodhisattva Way, the root of the whole assembly of Buddha-children.”
— Brahmā’s Net Sūtra, as cited by Ejō
Textual note. T2590 begins this quotation with 光光. In the wider Brahmā’s Net Sūtra commentarial tradition, interpreters disagreed over whether the two graphs should be divided between adjacent clauses or read together; among those reading them together, explanations include innumerable lights and the multiplicity of the precepts themselves. Here Ejō’s excerpt begins with both graphs, so both remain semantically visible. The body therefore uses the deliberately less physical “Each light.” BDK has “Each ray of light,” while Cleary has “the light of lights”; these are useful comparators but do not control T2590. Ejō’s immediately following gloss shifts to singular 此光明 (“this luminosity”), and that singular remains visible below.
Thus the Tathāgata, whose essential nature is empty space, emerges from the Flower-Radiance Samādhi, sits upon the adamantine thousand-light royal throne, and expounds this luminosity of the single precept. Know clearly that this luminosity is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. It is simply “the fire boy, red through and through”; the mud ox running on the ocean floor; the iron ox with neither hide nor bones. Since it is neither form nor mind, why lodge a seeking mind in your chest and keep panting inwardly? Nor is it a dharma of cause and effect. How could it be fabricated by practice and realization? It is truly the source of the buddhas and the root of all Buddha-children. Rocana Buddha has upheld this luminosity of the single precept from the first arousing of the mind. Therefore it is called the “Mind-Ground” chapter. It is free from all names and characteristics; this is called the precept-light of the mind-ground.
Textual note. The Brahmā’s Net Sūtra parallel treats 體性虛空華光三昧 as a single samādhi name. T2590, however, explicitly reads 如來既ニ體性虚空。華光三昧ヨリ出デタマヒテ, separating “the Tathāgata, whose essential nature is empty space” from “emerges from the Flower-Radiance Samādhi.” Because T2590 is the controlling witness, this translation preserves that split rather than silently restoring the canonical compound. The same T2590 line reads 金剛千光王座; “adamantine thousand-light royal throne” preserves the 王 element.
“If one who teaches Dharma is alone in a quiet and empty place, still and without human voices, reading and reciting this scripture, then at that time I will manifest my pure body of luminosity for that person. If a chapter or verse is forgotten, I will explain it so that the recitation becomes fluent.”
— Lotus Sūtra, “Teacher of the Dharma,” as cited by Ejō
Thus at the time of reading and reciting this scripture, “I will then manifest my pure body of luminosity.” The body and mind of the buddhas are luminosity. The lands of all tathāgatas are Eternally Quiescent Light. Pure Lands, bodies, and minds are all luminosity. Therefore the teachings speak of eighty-four thousand, even immeasurable, rays of luminosity.
The Great Mass of Flame
Zen Master Baoning Renyong raised the case of the flames preaching the Dharma and presented this verse:
“A mass of fierce flame reddens the sky;
— Zen Master Baoning Renyong
the tathāgatas of the three times are within it.
The turning of the great Dharma wheel is now complete;
above the eyebrows rises a pure breeze.”
When one studies in the innermost chamber of the Buddha family, one naturally penetrates the preaching of the flames in just this way. A single mass of fierce flame blazes through the three times, with no place from which it is born, no appearance, and no differentiation; therefore it ultimately has no place where it is extinguished. Because all is without differentiation, this is the scenery of the original ground of the myriad phenomena, sentient beings, and buddhas.
Why do students today fail to keep this in mind and to have faith and understanding? Because they lack faith and understanding, they become the most foolish of ordinary beings and cannot escape the cycle of rebirth in the evil destinies. Turn back to yourself and thoroughly see where the fault lies. People carried along by worldly convention take illusory and impermanent dharmas to be genuinely permanent and get no respite from worldly gain and loss. They place deep and lasting reliance on this body—a lamp before the wind that can hardly be guaranteed until tomorrow, whose outgoing breath may not wait for the incoming breath—and rejoice or grieve according to favorable and adverse conditions.
Even your four elements and five aggregates will vanish like dew on Mount Tai and North Mount Mang, leaving not a dust mote that can be grasped as “mine,” yet you pass your days at ease as if a real “I” were here. How much more shameful to retain as “mine” things outside the body—countries and cities, wives and children, fields and houses, gardens and estates, gold and jewels, clothing. Those who fail to truly believe that this is how things are, and instead devote themselves to accumulation, seeking, and attachment, will all disappear without remainder until not a trace remains—how sad. This does not require scriptural instruction; it is the principle before your very eyes.
It is already one mass of fierce flame. Therefore the tathāgatas of the three times are within it, and all beings born in the four modes are within it. Why, then, is there a difference between beings and buddhas here? It is said: one who falsely clings to “I” does not trust luminosity and floats and sinks with that “I” in birth-and-death within this very field. For one who thoroughly sees luminosity, the great, equal, unobstructed wisdom manifests within this same field.
“Without leaving this very place, it is always clear and still. If you seek it, you will find that it cannot be seen. You cannot grasp it; you cannot discard it. Within the unattainable, just thus attain it.”
— Yongjia
Nāgārjuna praised prajñā: “Prajñāpāramitā is like a great mass of fire; it cannot be grasped from any of the four sides.” Yet although people hear and see such a great teaching, they study it merely as someone else’s realm. They do not let the whole body drop away, nor do they penetrate it in its entirety. Instead they say, “I am not a vessel for this; I am a beginner; I began late; I am an ordinary person who has not cut off even one delusion.” They refuse to put down old views and self-views.
All day and all night they live within prajñā’s great Treasury of Luminosity yet make themselves hired laborers of low status, becoming the poor son who wanders in hardship for more than fifty years. This is the conceit of self-abasement: though originally the child of a wealthy man, one forgets the father’s command. How sad—clinging to the dung-removing vessel, becoming the lowly worker forever ordered to remove filth, and imagining the pure body of luminosity to be an impure body that is the fruit of suffering. This is grief within grief; nothing could be sadder. Quickly correct the private bias of self-view.
Exhausting Self-View
Even if you discuss the principles of Great and Small Vehicles, provisional and real teachings, exoteric and esoteric, or the wondrous purports of the Five Houses and Seven Schools, so long as self-view remains, all of it finally returns to arising and ceasing. Thus it is said: if you understand true reality with a mind of arising and ceasing, true reality itself becomes arising and ceasing. The views of self, person, sentient being, and life-span are self-view. The view of personal identity, one-sided views, wrong views, and attachment to views are self-view. Even from equal awakening up to wondrous awakening, what is called ignorance—countless as dust and sand and thin as gauze—is also self-view.
At first it is called “self-view”; later it may be called habitual intellectual understanding, attachment to Dharma, traces of awakening, the “nothing-to-do” view, or the view of standing on level ground. These are only different names substituted according to how much self-view remains and how light or heavy it is. Why? From the gravely evil and perverse view at the outset down to a single point of gauze-thin ignorance, when there is no self-view, what thing could be called a Buddha-view or Dharma-view? Who would there be to retain even that gauze veil?
Textual note. In the displayed T2590 text, 塵沙 carries the standard Buddhist “dust-and-sand” image of innumerability, while 羅縠 denotes fine silk gauze and supplies the image of an extremely subtle remaining veil. The apparatus records 沙羅縠ノ無明＝無品羅薄無明イ＜原＞ and 縠＝薄イ＜原＞. The body follows the displayed T2590 text; these variants are disclosed because they directly affect the image being translated.
Therefore our Founding Ancestor said, “First of all, you should exhaust the ‘I’. If you wish to exhaust the ‘I’, contemplate impermanence.” This is a direct indication from a mind of utmost sincerity. The Master of Shaolin’s Teaching on Pacifying the Mind says: “Question: People in the world study many things; why do they not attain the Way? Answer: Because they see a self, they do not attain the Way. Here, ‘self’ means ‘I’. The consummate person meets suffering without anxiety and meets pleasure without delight because no self is seen.”
An ancient Buddha’s verse says: “The Buddha does not see a body; wisdom is Buddha. If there truly is wisdom, there is no Buddha apart from it. The wise one knows that karmic obstructions are empty and rests at ease without fearing birth-and-death.” Not fearing birth-and-death is because no body is seen. Not seeing a body is the absence of self-view. Great wisdom-luminosity is thus free of private bias; hence it is said, “Wisdom is Buddha.”
Textual note. The controlling T2590 witness here reads 佛不見身智是佛。若實有智別無佛。智者能知罪障空, which the body follows as “wisdom … wisdom … karmic obstructions.” The parallel verse in the Zongjing lu (T2016) reads 佛不見身知是佛。若實有知別無佛。智者能知罪性空, with 知 (“knowing”) and 罪性 (“the nature of wrongdoing”). Because those substitutions materially change the English, they are recorded here rather than silently imported into T2590.
Yet you cherish this body, like dew on grass or a floating bubble, while treating the great luminosity that is your original body as though you were passing judgment on someone else’s affair. You imagine there must be yet another grand thing beyond this, and uselessly discuss whether the country is peaceful or chaotic and whether offerings are good or poor, while this very body passes away in vain; yet you have established no course of practice with regard to how this body will finally come to rest. If you had even the slightest share of trusting and practicing within this Treasury of Luminosity, how could it concern only the liberation of this single body called “me”? Above, it repays the four debts of gratitude; below, it benefits the three realms of existence. Mountains, rivers, the great earth, one’s own body and others’ bodies—all will be boundlessly illuminated by the luminosity of suchness.
“The nature of awakening, perfectly luminous, is the body without characteristics.
— Caoshan Benji
Do not, within knowing and views, force distinctions of distance and intimacy.
When thoughts diverge, the mysterious essence is obscured;
when mind deviates, it does not neighbor the Way.
When feeling divides the myriad dharmas, one sinks into objects before one;
when discernment branches in many directions, original truth is lost.
If you completely understand what these lines say,
you are clearly the person of old, with nothing to do.”
This is a direct pointing and direct explanation within the Treasury of Luminosity, and at the same time it reveals wondrous practice and original realization. It does not ask whether one is monk or layperson, beginner or advanced. It does not choose sharp faculties over dull ones and makes no distinction according to how learned or knowledgeable one is. It simply points directly: the nature of awakening, perfectly luminous, is the body without characteristics. There is no second or third.
“The nature of awakening” means Buddha-nature. “Perfectly luminous” is one seamless great luminosity. This very illusory body of yours right now is the Quiescent Light without characteristics. Therefore an ancient worthy said, “Throughout the whole body there is no image or reflection; throughout the entire world it is nowhere concealed.” If you have not yet understood, I will ask you further: shatter the four elements of your whole body right now; burn away skin, flesh, bones, and marrow—then bring me one thing. At precisely such a time, buddhas and sentient beings of past and present, ordinary and sage throughout the three realms, all phenomena—none is other than the body without characteristics.
Linji Yixuan said, “The four elements cannot preach Dharma or listen to Dharma. Spleen, stomach, liver, and gallbladder cannot preach or listen. Empty space cannot preach or listen. Tell me: what is it that can preach and listen?” This is the numinous luminosity that listens to the Dharma without reliance—the body without characteristics. For the sake of people, the ancients provisionally gave it a name: “the person of the Way who listens to Dharma without reliance.” Here Caoshan says, “The nature of awakening, perfectly luminous, is the body without characteristics.” In this one line the matter is stated distinctly and completely.
Out of grandmotherly kindness he then shows wondrous practice: “Do not force distinctions of distance and intimacy within knowing and views.” Those who draw close to bad teachers study interpretations and soon say, “Through the power gained in my training I have obtained a Zen that surpasses buddhas and ancestors. No one else can know it. Who besides me could be intimate with the pivotal function of Zen?” This is a crooked mind possessed by the demon king, an outsider who has not attained yet claims attainment.
Another group, positing a self and clinging to marks, becomes discouraged and says, “I am dull, not suited to study; learning is beyond me.” This too is a fabricated view. When these two sorts of views arise, producing liking and dislike and judgments of right and wrong, all turn into the four mental activities—mind, thought, feeling, and consciousness. So Caoshan cuts them in two with one stroke: “When thoughts diverge, the mysterious essence is obscured; when mind deviates, it does not become a neighbor of the Way.” Truly one should abandon bad teachers and draw near to good friends. To learn views from a false teacher and then think “this is close” and “that is distant” is merely to generate views without basis.
The Way and the mysterious essence are the sun-face and moon-face of the luminous nature of awakening. Yet from within this luminosity a single thought of non-awakening arises, and false mind and distorted imagination grow. These are floating clouds obstructing the moon of the perfectly luminous mind. Thus it says, “it does not become a neighbor.”
Textual note. T2590 writes 相隣 in Caoshan’s verse (心差不與道相隣), but 成隣 when Ejō requotes the line and then explicitly glosses it as 不成隣. The English therefore distinguishes “does not neighbor the Way” from “does not become a neighbor of the Way” rather than silently normalizing the two graphs.
“When feeling divides the myriad dharmas, one sinks into objects before one.” The Tathāgata has already taught that there is no distinction among these three—mind, Buddha, and sentient beings; he has also said that there is only the One Vehicle. Yet although you hear and see such a great teaching, on your own side you recklessly raise distinctions of self and other, noble and low, ordinary and sage; because of beautiful and ugly sights and sounds, poverty and wealth, benefit and loss, you are carried away by objects before you. This is what comes of relying on your own views and thereby defiling practice-realization; it is the doing of the arrogant and unbelieving.
“When discernment branches in many directions, original truth is lost.” The Buddhadharma responds to vastly different capacities, and so there are many approaches: Great and Small Vehicles, provisional and real, half and full, partial and complete, exoteric and esoteric, Zen and doctrinal teaching, realization of the Way and Pure Land. But when the faculty of thought clings to conditions, original truth is finally lost. “If you completely understand what these lines say, you are clearly the person of old, with nothing to do.” This “person of old” is the body without characteristics, simply sitting upright without doubt and without contrivance of practice, realization, or mental effort. If even a hair’s breadth of intellectual understanding is kept in mind, then there is still something to do, and one is not the person of old.
Textual note. T2590 here prints 證道淨土. The standard East Asian Buddhist classification is 聖道 / 淨土 (“Path of Sages / Pure Land”), and both Cleary and White Wind normalize this passage in that direction. Because the controlling witness has 證 rather than 聖, the body retains the literal “realization of the Way and Pure Land” instead of silently emending the received text.
Nothing Attained
Śākyamuni Tathāgata said in the Diamond Sūtra, “When I was with Dīpaṃkara Buddha, there was no Dharma by which I attained unsurpassed complete awakening.” This is the single phrase of meeting Dīpaṃkara Buddha. A single phrase, clearly understood, surpasses a hundred koṭis. Study this luminosity of nothing attained.
Those today who shave their heads and dye their robes as descendants of the Tathāgata spend days and months illuminated by Dīpaṃkara, yet never even question what Dīpaṃkara Buddha actually is; therefore they have no share in genuine study. They merely borrow the appearance of leaving home while greedily receiving offerings of the four requisites—truly idlers. If you say this is not so, I ask you: what are the marks and features of Dīpaṃkara Buddha? You may not answer with words, and you may not answer without words. Speak quickly! Speak quickly!
How sad that people study Dīpaṃkara only as a Buddha of the past and do not know the shining that spans antiquity and illuminates the present. How then could you trust that preaching Dharma and entering nirvāṇa are taking place within your own nostrils and eyes?
There is a group of inferior śrāvakas who intensely despise birth-and-death and urgently seek nirvāṇa. Those of you in this group rouse a fierce resolve premised on real existence and attainment, adding craving for Dharma on top of your self-conceit; your seeking mind never stops until death. Blind teachers praise you as good people of faith, so you become proud that this self-clinging and acquisitiveness make you diligent practitioners of the Way, and in the end you attain the hungry-ghost realm. But the “constant diligence” studied in the Buddha family and the great samādhi, blazing and steadfast, that has been singly transmitted do not mean your distorted concentration, in which practice and realization are set up as two stages and intellectual understanding is pursued.
“Numinous luminosity shines alone,
— Baizhang
far removed from sense faculties and their objects.
The essence stands exposed, true and constant,
unrestricted by words and letters.
Mind-nature is unstained,
originally complete.
Simply depart from delusive conditions,
and you are a Buddha of suchness.”
This numinous luminosity has not been interrupted from kalpas of the distant past through the furthest reach of the future; this is called constant diligence. Being far removed from sense faculties and their objects, with the essence exposed as true and constant, is called blazing and ever steadfast. Entrusting yourself to this numinous luminosity and abiding without movement is called the samādhi of just sitting, the Samādhi That Is King of Samādhis.
Even within “having something to attain,” there are differences of depth and shallowness, lightness and heaviness. “Having something to attain” is not limited to those who cling to phenomenal aspects, engage in practices with characteristics, seek outside themselves, distinguish true from false on the basis of words and phrases, give while abiding in marks, misunderstand “accumulating merit and virtue,” and afflict body and mind to extinguish sins and generate goodness while boasting that this is diligence. Even if you put down brush and inkstone, cut off human affairs, sit alone in an empty valley, live on fruits and nuts and wear grass garments, sit continuously without lying down—if in your mind you stop movement in order to return to stillness, seek to cut off delusion completely and abide one-sidedly in “truth,” grasping and rejecting, hating birth-and-death and loving nirvāṇa, all of this is still having something to attain.
“Abandoning existence and clinging to emptiness is the same disease—like avoiding drowning only to leap into fire. Discarding delusion to seize the true, the mind of grasping and rejecting becomes artifice. Students who do not understand use this as practice; truly they take a thief for their own child. The loss of Dharma-wealth and destruction of merit all come from this mind, thought, and consciousness.”
— Yongjia
Therefore students should cast body and mind into the Treasury of Luminosity, let the whole body drop away in Buddha-luminosity, and sit, lie down, and walk within it. The World-Honored One said, “A Buddha-child dwells on this ground; this is precisely the Buddha’s enjoyment—always within it, whether walking, sitting, or lying down.” As Buddha-children, do not forget these golden words even for a moment. “This ground” is the Treasury of Luminosity; it is the single Buddha Vehicle.
Do not, by one thought that turns away from awakening and joins the dust, suddenly transform this Buddha-enjoyment into the enjoyment of animals or hungry ghosts. Tell me: what of the marks and features of Dīpaṃkara Buddha, Śākyamuni, and the succession of lamps whose flames have continued through the Seven Buddhas and the ancestral lineage? And as for the bodhimaṇḍa in which they enter nirvāṇa, do you study it as belonging to remote antiquity? Do you hear of it and think of it as eternally abiding and never extinguished? Will you say they dwell in a jeweled city of Quiescent Light? Will you understand “the Buddha’s true Dharma-body is like empty space”? If you remain at such a level and never break free of the cave of learned calculation, how could you be called a teacher who inherits Buddha-luminosity? It is the cry of a jackal wearing a lion’s skin.
If you have no share in investigating within your own eye, then even if you shave your head and dye your robes, you are a pitiable sentient being. To explain a thousand scriptures and ten thousand treatises is only to count the treasures in the house next door—like a seafarer who knows that a treasure is precious but does not know its price. Tell me: right now, when you shit and piss, put on clothes and eat food, ultimately whose enjoyment is it?
Not only that: the color of water and the light of mountains, heat departing and cold arriving, spring flowers and the autumn moon, a thousand changes and ten thousand transformations—what brings all this forth? Truly, “the countenance is exceedingly wondrous; luminosity shines through the ten directions.” Birth-and-death and nirvāṇa are like last night’s dream. Existence itself is nonexistence; nonexistence itself is existence. If it is not thus, then to say “always on Vulture Peak” is a false teaching, a false theory; to hear “unborn, undying, Eternally Quiescent Light” is mere speech, entirely without real meaning.
Do Not Polish Darkness in Order to Produce Luminosity
Śākyamuni Tathāgata says in his golden words on the luminosity of the single precept:
“Those who posit a self and cling to marks cannot believe this Dharma. Those who extinguish their lifespan in the course of practice and realization are likewise no ground in which the seed can be planted.† If you wish the sprouts of bodhi to grow and luminosity to illuminate the world, you should quietly contemplate the true characteristic of dharmas: neither arising nor ceasing, neither eternal nor annihilated, neither one nor different, neither coming nor going … toward those in training and those beyond training, do not give rise to discriminatory thought.”
— Śākyamuni Tathāgata, as cited by Ejō; parallel in the Brahmā’s Net Sūtra
Textual note. T2590/SAT reads 滅壽修證者 at this point. The body preserves its distinctive components—滅壽 as “extinguish their lifespan” and 修證 as “practice and realization”—rather than smoothing the phrase into a better-known parallel. The parallel precept verse in T1484 reads 計我著相者 不能信是法 滅盡取證者, differing both in word order around “cannot believe this Dharma” and in 滅盡取證者. Some later Brahmā’s Net commentarial witnesses instead read 滅壽取證者 and explain it polemically of the Two Vehicles’ extinction of body and cognition and attainment of quiescent nirvāṇa. That parallel tradition helps clarify the force of 滅壽, but it does not justify replacing T2590’s 修證 with 取證.
Hear these golden words, “luminosity shines upon the world,” through to the bones and marrow. It is the wondrous body in which the great functioning of the buddhas of the three times is manifest. Reverently receive it and put it into practice, and how could you not rejoice greatly?
Yet when I look at practitioners today, they place themselves at a causal stage of ignorance and darkness and polish themselves morning and evening, waiting for some later time when they will finally see through luminosity. Or they mistake the blazing pure luminosity itself for a flurry of miscellaneous thoughts, repeatedly brush away every flame, and try to see “Eternally Quiescent Light.” If the absence of all arising were correct, then wood, stone, and clods of earth would be it. All such practitioners flee fire only to plunge into drowning; they are inferior śrāvakas.
How foolish to cling to the sitting of the Two Vehicles and the inclinations of ordinary people while wanting to awaken to the supreme great Way. There is no duller or more distorted practice than this. Therefore it is said: “The Two Vehicles are diligent but have no mind of the Way; outsiders are clever but have no wisdom. Foolish and deluded, childishly ignorant, they form a substantial understanding on the basis of an empty fist and a pointing finger.”
Textual note. T2590/SAT prints 小駭 in the quoted line 又愚又痴又小駭. The underlying Yongjia Zhengdao Ge in T2014 instead reads 亦愚癡亦小騃. The English “childishly ignorant” follows the transmitted quotation-family sense of 小騃; the discrepancy with the controlling T2590 witness is disclosed here rather than silently normalized.
Such efforts to cultivate and seek the mind are obstructed by calculation and conjecture; they not only bury the luminosity originally present and complete but also slander the Tathāgata’s wheel of true Dharma. This is karma leading to Avīci hell. Moreover, it is only ignorant people with little wisdom who become heads of monasteries and guide crowds of blind people clinging to self and attainment. From the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties of China down to the present they have been as numerous as rice, hemp, bamboo, and reeds. How could one not pity this? How could one not grieve?
Even those who occasionally emerge from that nest see spirits and ghosts; the “thieving mind” has not yet died. Some recklessly confer the seal of approval on a once-in-a-lifetime burst of courage. Others generate a fierce resolve for a time, sit long without lying down, and exhaust mind and consciousness until all things become one piece; activity has only just come to a stop, thought has grown quiet, and there is a vacant, vividly alert state like solitary brightness. They falsely understand this “inside and outside made one piece” to be their own original ground. They present this view to a blind Zen teacher. The teacher lacks the eye that sees people and therefore responds according to the visitor’s words, granting a winter-melon seal; the person then calls himself a monk who has finished training. Practitioners of shallow understanding and little learning who fall into this poison are too many to count. Even if we call this the Final Dharma age, is it not altogether lamentable?
Ejō’s Direct Instruction to Those Who Truly Practice
I respectfully say to companions who genuinely practice: do not seize upon any particular inner response or outward situation. Do not rely on interpretations or cleverness. Do not carry around what you have learned on the communal sitting platform of the monks’ hall. Cast body and mind completely into the great Treasury of Luminosity spoken of above and never look back a second time.
Do not seek awakening. Do not sweep away delusion. Do not dislike thoughts as they arise; nor cherish and continue them. Sit fully and solidly, right here. If you do not continue thoughts, they do not arise by themselves. Be simply like a single expanse of empty sky, like one mass of fire. Entrust yourself to exhalation and inhalation. Do not get involved in any of the myriad affairs. Sit decisively.
Even if eighty-four thousand miscellaneous thoughts arise and cease, when you do not get involved with them but let them go completely, each and every thought will become the luminosity of the spiritual power of prajñā. Nor is this limited to sitting. Step after step is the walking of luminosity; step by step, there is no discriminative thinking.
Throughout the twelve periods of the day, you are like a great dead person, without any self-view or discrimination. Yet exhalation and inhalation, hearing-nature and touch-nature, without knowing or discrimination, are the luminosity of quiescent illumination in which body and mind are one. Therefore, when called, there is an immediate response. This is the luminosity in which ordinary and sage, delusion and awakening, are one.
Even in the midst of activity, it is not obstructed by activity. Forest flowers and blades of grass, humans and animals, large and small, long and short, square and round—all manifest at once without relying on the discriminations of your mind, thoughts, or attention. This is manifest evidence that luminosity is unobstructed by functioning: empty and bright, self-illuminating, without expenditure of mental effort.
From the beginning, this luminosity has no abiding place. Although buddhas appear in the world, luminosity does not “appear in the world.” Although buddhas enter nirvāṇa, luminosity does not “enter nirvāṇa.” When you are born, luminosity is not born. When you die, luminosity is not extinguished. In a buddha it does not increase; in a sentient being it is not extinguished. Even when deluded, it is not deluded; even when awakened, it does not awaken. It has no location, no characteristic, and no name. It is the totality of the myriad phenomena.
Textual note. At this later locus, T2590 and the 1909 printed edition both read 佛ニ在テモ増サズ。衆生ニ在テモ滅ゼズ (“in a buddha it does not increase; in a sentient being it is not extinguished”). Earlier in the same work, however, T2590 gives the paired formula 在諸佛不増。在衆生不減 (“does not increase in buddhas; does not decrease in sentient beings”). The translation follows each local witness and does not silently normalize the later 滅 to 減.
It cannot be grasped. It cannot be discarded. It cannot be attained. Yet though unattainable, it is enacted throughout the whole body. From the Peak of Existence above down to Avīci Hell below, it is perfectly luminous just so—numinous luminosity, wondrous and inconceivable.
If you trust and receive this profound intent, there is no need to turn to another and ask what is true or false. It will be like meeting your own father in the marketplace. Do not seek another good teacher’s certification or delight in receiving predictions and attaining fruition. How much less should you cling to clothing, food, or dwelling, or indulge in sensual desire and attachment—the conduct of animals.
From the very beginning this samādhi is the bodhimaṇḍa of the fruit-ocean of all buddhas. Therefore it is the singly transmitted Buddha-sitting and Buddha-practice. Since you are already a Buddha-child, sit securely only upon the Buddha-seat. You need not necessarily practice the sitting of hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, asuras, humans and devas, śrāvakas, or pratyekabuddhas.‡
Textual note. T2590/SAT reads 聲聞縁覺坐ニカナラズシモ坐スべカラズ. The カナラズシモ construction with the negative predicate gives a partial-negation reading (“not necessarily”), which the translation follows. A 1909 printed edition reads カナラズ without シモ, yielding a stronger prohibition; because T2590/SAT is the controlling witness here, that variant is recorded rather than silently adopted.
Just sit in this way and do not let time pass in vain. This is called the bodhimaṇḍa of straightforward mind and the Samādhi of the Treasury of Luminosity of inconceivable liberation.
Do not show this writing to anyone but disciples who have entered the Master’s room. This is a single-minded concern to protect the Dharma, so that distorted and deviant views do not arise in one’s own practice or in guiding others.
Twenty-eighth day of the eighth month, Kōan 1 (1278)
Kōmyōzō Zanmai — End
Postscript by Genryō
The ancients said: “Causes, conditions, and the ripening of the time—quiescent, yet clearly manifest.” I therefore reflect: that our Ancestor Ejō first set forth this teaching was the cause; that my old teacher was fortunately able to obtain it was the condition; that it awaited the present, half a millennium later, was the ripening of the time. That we have therefore carved blocks and circulated it throughout the realm—how could this not be “quiescent, yet clearly manifest”? Deeply moved, this unworthy one respectfully adds these humble words as a postscript.
Genryō, humble junior student at Eikeiji in Bungo Province, respectfully written
Textual note. Immediately before this date T2590 prints 維持; the earlier preface above has the conventional dating formula 維時. The English gives the date without silently emending the later witness.
Verse for the Recut Edition
Earlier, on the occasion of Ancestor Ejō’s six-hundredth grand memorial observance, I respectfully offered the fascicle of Kōmyōzō Zanmai that he had revealed, attaching an unworthy verse. Now I am informed that the recut edition has been completed, and so I record the verse at the end of the volume:
Six hundred years ago, that rotten staff—
— Kōan
swallowing seas and mountains whole, where could it coil?
Reed flowers, bright moon, the autumn wind clear and bracing;
a reflection moves in the cold pool—[reading uncertain] one mass.*
Textual note. At the final phrase, the direct Taishō/SAT witness reads 王一團. Because the initial graph 王 of this phrase does not yield a secure English reading in this context, the translation marks that portion unresolved rather than adopting an unverified emendation from a secondary transcription.
Kōan, formerly of Buttokuji, respectfully bowed and inscribed this
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